AWADmail Issue 574

The animal lover in me responded first, even though I'm not really a
"cat-fan". Very cute. That feeling lasted about three seconds of the two
minute+ video. The rest of the time was spent watching, not the cat, but the
stream of water, and wondering how many litres were wasted, and if every cat
owner were to be so recklessly wasteful with such a precious commodity, how
much water would be wasted and could have been used by those that don't have
access to such a luxury. I have just returned from a trip to Namibia where
young Himba women carry 25 litre containers (25 kg = 55lb) on their heads,
up a steep hill to their village. Shameful really to see such arrogant waste.

Sarah Slade, Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy

From: Rob Rushton (Enigma-I charter.net)
Subject: fishwife/alewife

Unlike fishwife, a woman who sells fish, nowadays an alewife is not a woman who
sells ale. An alewife is a type of
fish (or the last stop
on the MBTA Red Line in Boston). A fishwife in Boston might well sell you
an alewife.

Rob Rushton, Brookline, New Hampshire

From: Karthik D. (karthikeyan.d gmail.com)
Subject: fishwife

"It has not been determined who the winner might be in a swearing contest
between a fishwife and a sailor."

Perhaps a sailor who is married to a fishwife or a fishwife who is married
to a sailor (since he/she would probably have a richer vocabulary!),
provided their opponent does not have a sailor/fishwife spouse, in which
case the contest could be tied.

Your entry on "fishwife" reminded me of an axe I have to grind with our
linguistic culture: there seems to be a number of nouns and adjectives
specifically applied to women that are automatically derogatory.

It's kind of like "shrew" and
"wench". Do men get to be shrill? And could we have some male-parallel
backhandedly positive adjectives like feisty, spunky, and plucky for
that matter?

I visited a friend from Michigan State University in the summer of 1979 as
he pursued graduate studies at the University of Sussex. He attended class
and worked on his dissertation during the day, and I traveled to London
to take in the sights. It was in the course of one of these excursions that
I stumbled into Billingsgate Fish Market.

I'd long been a logophile, so you can only imagine my delight. When I met
my buddy and his three graduate school classmates at the pub in Brighton
that night, I had to tell them. I'd laid eyes on Billingsgate, the fish
market that had given birth to a colorful 25-dollar word! All four of my
hyperarticulate interlocutors -- the American and the three Brits -- stared
at me blankly. "Billingsgate? What does that mean? It's a fish market?!"

Skunky is also a technical term related to beer and brewing. Our son is
an Indiana state certified beer judge. If beer is exposed to ultraviolet
or visible light, it takes on an unpleasant taste and especially a skunk
smell. Brown bottles protect beer, but clear and green do not. Heineken
beer is notorious for being skunky almost all the time.

Our supposedly malodorous friend was a loyal (if short) subject of King
Leonardo in Hanna and Barbera's 1960s' TV show titled Ruff and Reddy. He
bore the euphemistic appellation Odie-o Cologne who would rush to the
rescue of his lord in sticky (not to say stinking) situations. His theme
song included the lines:

But Odie-o Cologne steps in to change the play,
That loyal skunk with skill and spunk comes through to save the day!

In one of the episodes, madly in love with a lady skunk, he wooed her with
the words: "I am a streetcar, and have a great desire for you." If that's
not skunky, I don't know what is.

Incidentally, Cologne was supposed to be pronounced colony, with the stress
on the second syllable.

The Bring Out Your Dead article meaning is more a cannabis reference. Skunk
#1 is a famous strain among cannabis smokers. When they describe the
taste or smell of the plant as skunky, it is typically a good thing.

Heard the word in Seinfield
Sitcom (video). Elaine wants to understand the meaning of a cartoon published in
the New Yorker and goes to the extent of seeing the cartoon editor. He
then explains to her that cartoons are like gossamer and one does not
dissect a gossamer.

Glad to know what he actually meant.

Manuj Agarwal, New Delhi, India

From: Russell Marsh (rhmarsh ucdavis.edu)
Subject: gossamer

Gossamer takes me back to a favorite childhood memory. "Gossamer" was a
huge red monster in tennis shoes first featured in the Looney Tunes cartoon
Hair-Raising Hare. Bugs Bunny does Gossamer's nails while making beauty
shop small talk. "I said to my girlfriend just the other day, 'Gee, I bet
monsters are interesting,' I said. The places you must go and the things you
must see... My stars!" Hysterical. Thanks for bringing back a fond memory.

I am currently engaged in the compilation of the Bloomsbury Dictionary
of Rhyming Slangs, due for publication in 2014. The rhyming slang 'bird',
for time spent in prison, is a classic item in that vocabulary: it derives
from birdlime.

Terry Victor, Caerwent, UK

Email of the Week (Brought to you by One Up! -- Have yourself a s&y blast.)

From: Larry Alden (overlook nycap.rr.com)
Subject: birdlime

As a birder (someone who is not an ornithologist and who doesn't like the
old fogey connotations associated with the term "bird watcher"), I found
today's word to be very timely. I've just read an article (also see video) in the July issue
of National Geographic magazine which reported on the widespread slaughter
of birds in the countries bordering the Mediterranean. It was one of the
saddest articles I have ever read. One picture showed a whitethroat, a small
songbird, splayed out on a lime stick. I find the act of indiscriminately
shooting, netting, or trapping of anything that has feathers to be barbaric.

Larry Alden, Altamont, New York

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The strength of a language does not lie in rejecting what is foreign but in
assimilating it. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and
philosopher (1749-1832)